Kern Pharma has donated €16,026.74 to the project funded by the Mi Compañero de Viaje at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) to boost research into paediatric sarcomas headed by Dr Josep Roma, principal investigator with the Childhood Cancer and Haematological Diseases Group.

The amount was raised from small contributions by employees at Kern Pharma and Calier, a veterinary company in the Indukern Group, during 2020 and 2021. The company then doubled the amount collected to obtain the final figure. “We are proud of the fact that, thanks to the involvement of our workers, who voluntarily donated the loose cents from their monthly salaries and the part added by Kern Pharma, we are able to help with the research into new treatments for cancer in children and teenagers. This small gesture can produce major steps forward in the treatment and cure of this disease”, explains Anna Llopis, head of Sustainability at Kern Pharma.

Mi Compañero de Viaje is a support association for young people with cancer that works to raise awareness about the disease and collect funds for cancer research. The association has been collaborating with VHIR research since 2015, raising over €110,000, all going to fund projects on paediatric sarcomas, a cancer which caused the death of one of the co-creators. “It is very important to us to receive the support of companies such as Kern Pharma so we can continue advancing research into childhood and teenage cancer. We are delighted to see such a good response to the initiative of contributing small donations among the company’s employees. The collection exceeded our expectations! We are enormously grateful”, explains Andrea Martí, chair of Mi Compañero de Viaje.

The donations will go toward the project “Preclinical development of a new anticancer compound, based on Hedgehog pathway coreceptor inhibition”. The Hedgehog pathway is activated in most tumours, and is therefore considered a target with high therapeutic potential. “We are developing an innovative therapeutic approach, based on a new therapeutic target, the Hedgehog pathway coreceptors. Through this project we hope to obtain truly effective inhibition to provide patients with a specific, highly effective, low toxicity therapy. Thanks to the collaboration of Mi Compañero de Viaje over this time, we have achieved excellent results in the first phases of the project”, assures Dr Roma.

So far, the research team has demonstrated high preclinical efficacy of Hedgehog pathway inhibition with rhabdomyosarcoma, one of the most frequent childhood tumours, and the efficacy of an inhibitor in animal models of the disease. Furthermore, they have shown that bone sarcomas can also benefit from this treatment, opening the way to applying the therapy to other childhood malignant tumours.